Blade Edge

As I mentioned in my last flight log, this morning I hopped into the Dodosim Bell 206B and took off from the Downtown Wall Street Heliport (KJRB) to circle closer around the World Trade Center. No problems there – the wind was calm and conditions were clear around the city so after circling the WTC I headed off up north to retrace an earlier helicopter flight up to Haverstraw, NY to land at the public pad there (H43). I passed the Intrepid Air & Space museum along the way and I wonder if they will be adding the Enterprise exhibit to it at a later date, perhaps when they update with a completed WTC.

There were a few small bumps flying up the Hudson river but nothing major – weather continued to hold clear and calm until I was about 5 miles out from Haverstraw when some low clouds hit and dropped my visibility down to around 10sm – no doubt some morning fog that had yet to burn away from the day’s building heat. The fog wasn’t over Haverstraw though so visibility was not further reduced and I had no trouble spotting the aerial tower landmark next to the heliport and crossing over the river on approach. Coming around to land I was definitely sloppy on the controls but thought I had a decent rate of descent going as I transitioned into a hover. I thought I felt my skids touch the ground as I started to rotate to the right but it might have just been uncompensated rotor torque rotation because when I cut the throttle to settle the skids I dropped a couple feet and crashed instead.

Man, just not having any luck with the helicopter landings lately 🙁